WELLINGBOROUGH  , a

market town in the eastern parliamentary division of Northamptonshire, England, 631 m . N.N.W. from London by the Midland railway; served also by the London & North-Western railway . Pop. of urban district (1901), 18,412 . It lies on the declivity of a hill near the junction of the Ise with the Nene, in a pleasant well-wooded district . The church of St Luke is a beautiful building with Norman and Early English portions, but is mainly Decorated, with a western tower and spire . The grammar-schools, founded in 1594 and endowed with the revenues of a suppressed gild, include a- school of the second and a school of the third grade, the former a building of red brick in the Renaissance style erected in 188o, and the latter an old Elizabethan structure . Another educational endowment is Freeman's school, founded by John Freeman in 1711 . There are also several charities . The principal public building is the corn exchange . The town is of some importance as a centre of agricultural trade; but the staple industry is in leather . A great impulse to the prosperity of the town was given by the introduction of the boot and shoe trade, especially the manufacture of uppers . Smelting, brewing and iron-founding are also carried on, as well as the manufacture of portable steam-engines, and iron ore is raised in the vicinity .

In 948

Edred gave the church at Wellingborough to Crowland Abbey, and the grant was confirmed by King Edgar in 966 . In the reign of Edward II. the abbot was lord in full . The town received the grant of a market in 1201 . It was formerly famed for the chalybeate springs to which it owes its name, and in 1621 was visited by Charles I. and his queen, who resided in tents during a whole season while taking the waters . It was after its almost total destruction by fire in 1738 that the town was built on its present site on the hill .